Research Article The Production of Zeolite Y Catalyst From Palm Kernel Shell for Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit Angela Mamudu , 1 Moses Emetere , 2 Felix Ishola , 3 and Dorcas Lawal 1 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria 2 Department of Physics, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria Correspondence should be addressed to Angela Mamudu; angela.mamudu@covenantuniversity.edu.ng Received 15 June 2020; Revised 15 September 2020; Accepted 17 March 2021; Published 31 March 2021 Academic Editor: Ho SoonMin Copyright © 2021 Angela Mamudu et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Exorbitant costs of fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) catalysts coupled with their ever-increasing demand have led researchers to develop alternative materials from indigenous sources. In this study, the zeolite Y component of the FCCU catalyst was synthesized from palm kernel shells. Leaching was carried out with the aid of citric acid to remove impurities. e synthesis process was done using alkaline hydrothermal treatment while varying reagent concentration and reaction time. e resultant products were characterized using XRF, XRD, FTIR, BET, and SEM analysis. e XRD and XRF showed a high silicate content level, while an 85% reduction in iron oxide impurities was observed after leaching. e process carried out at a duration of 9 hours, a temperature of 80 ° C with a NaOH molarity strength of 2 mol/L, had the highest SiO2 and Si/Al ratio value. A spongy, porous zeolite crystal was formed with the presence of hydroxyls in its sodalite cage. All samples had a combination of types II & I adsorption isotherms, Si/Al ratio of 2–5, and specific surface area within 80–260 m 2 /g, which indicates the presence of inter- mediate mesostructured Zeolite Y catalyst. Synthesized zeolite Y showed a more significant gap in its structural formation as the addition of NaOH decreased the grain size by 14.3%. FTIR highlighted the significant functional groups present in the novel compound, which, when compared to previous works, proves its suitability. 1. Introduction Petroleum refining is a process through which crude oil is converted into useful products [1]. Although it has many distinct units, the conversion and separation units always play significant roles [2]. e fluid catalytic cracking unit (FFCU), which falls under the conversion group, remains an indispensable unit operating in refineries. It converts about 40% of the heavy residues gotten from both vacuum and atmospheric distillation into lighter and more useful products with higher octane values [3, 4]. According to Vogt and Weckhuysen [5]; the heavy hydrocarbon mole- cules (majorly gas oil) preheated at about 149 ° C are charged as a feedstock into a catalyst riser containing particles of powdered catalyst that are fluidized by the hydrocarbon vapors. Cracking occurs within 2–4 seconds in the riser, where the heavy molecules are broken down into lighter and shorter chain molecules at 1 atm with a temperature range of 520 ° C–550 ° C. Separation occurs in the distillation column while the catalyst particles are re-generated. One of the significant achievements that have contrib- uted to the ever-growing popularity of the FCCU has been the introduction of Zeolite catalysts. Zeolites are hydrated alumina silicate materials made from inter-linked tetrahe- dral of alumina (AlO 4 ) and silica (SiO 4 ). 130 out of 840 catalysts used in industrial applications are based on zeolites, and the FCCU in petroleum refineries utilizes over 61% of these zeolite-based catalysts. e zeolite component makes up 10–50 wt.% of the catalyst and provides activity, stability, and selectivity. Zeolites are produced both synthetically and naturally, but most of the zeolites used in the FCCU are synthetically produced. Synthetic zeolite has fewer Hindawi International Journal of Chemical Engineering Volume 2021, Article ID 8871228, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8871228